


With Honey

by plastics



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), Psycho (1960)
Genre: Also Not The Worst Possible Ending, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Frottage, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, On the Run
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:01:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25482073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastics/pseuds/plastics
Summary: Over 3,000 miles and a new car later, Eddie needs a fucking break.
Relationships: Norman Bates/Eddie Kaspbrak
Comments: 12
Kudos: 22
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	With Honey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hearthouses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearthouses/gifts).



Eddie makes it to El Paso before he realizes he can’t escape to Mexico. 

Not that he’s tried or anything yet—driving down the east coast and over brought Eddie through what felt like five different Americas, but some truths are self-evident, such as: tacos that you get out of a white van at the side of the road are going to be some damn good tacos. It seemed like the proper send-off right up until it felt like a bad cliche. _He’d have a whole life to eat tacos,_ he tells himself, _and other stuff, too, probably,_ and then, _‘Other stuff,’ fuck, Eddie, it’s a whole fucking country,_ and finally, _‘Just move to Mexico,’ name five of its cities if you’re such a big fan_ , as he picks off egregiously large pieces of white onion. _Mexico City. Cancun. Tijuana. Monterrey._ Monterrey? Isn’t that in California? The wrong end of it?

Eddie doesn’t speak Spanish. He’s not familiar with the infrastructure, the de facto ways of life. What happens if he gets hurt, or sick? Where will he get money, after his stash runs out?

(It is, admittedly, a good-sized stash. Eddie keeps switching wildly between counting through it, making sure everything is there and that he’s not overspending, and not being able to stand having the big manilla envelope in his line of sight.)

People do it, obviously, people in worse straits than him, but the electric current that drove him solidifies into tar as he imagines how the next few hours could play out, and then the rest of the hours after that.

A cheery voice over the radio announced that it is going to be a hot one today, with the temperature peaking at a record-breaking 103 degrees. It’d been in the pros column when he was still up north and St. John’s or Halifax would have been the easier choice by far, but in the honesty of the sun, Eddie truly feels like he’s melting. Not a metaphor for an unseasonal 80-degree day, but truly as if the levees are failing and all of Eddie is slopping down his back and his armpits and his own face.

The clear conclusion here is that Eddie is not a desert guy. He’s probably not a tropics guy, either, and he doesn’t care for the thin air of the mountains. It’s not like he hasn’t looked at a map. Mexico, from the start, was a mistake. So what is he _doing_ here?

Eddie’s running from something. Every time his mind drift towards why, it recoils with a wave of fear and guilt so strong that it makes him gag. He can’t go back, can’t go south, so he’ll make the same mistake Americans have been making for as long as there have been Americans: Go west.

* * *

Eddie trades in his car after spending a night in Phoenix. Or, rather, outside of Phoenix.

It’s a stupid series of choices. A cop pulls Eddie over. He knows that he has the sort of nervous energy that, as an adult, tends to make other people nervous. They—especially when they are cops—get even more nervous when Eddie can’t seem to put together his name, where he came from, where he’s going.

“You’re from Maine?” the cop asks, and when Eddie just stares wide-eyed, he adds, “Your plates.”

“Oh, yeah, well, I always wanted to see the country someday,” Eddie says, and his laugh sounds horrific to his own ears. Christ, is this really going to be how he gets arrested? Loitering too long at the side of an abandoned highway? 

It isn’t, but it’s enough to make it clear that he’s made it far enough for the out-of-state license plates to draw attention that he doesn’t want. The new car is a bit older with fewer amenities, but it drives and the air conditioning blows and the plates read in a discrete red script declaring him local.

 _Vacationland,_ fuck off.

* * *

Eddie’s tired. He’s tired, he’s paranoid, and he’s pretty sure it isn’t supposed to rain like this in California. It seems like a bad omen.

Bad omens are easier to shrug off than the feeling of being followed.

He drags a hand down his face, grimy hand against the grit of salt he sweat out. “You’re fucking disgusting,” Eddie says out loud, because it’s true and he needs to hear it.

It’s a combination of all those things that makes Eddie pull over at the next motel he sees. Not quite as sketchy as some of the by-the-hour Eddie’s seen but not a chain, either, and off the highway enough that the only house as far as he can see is the one directly behind it. The empty parlor really cements the vibe, and Eddie has already decided against feeling guilty—or, rather, decided again, with decreasing effectivity—as he watches a slim man lope down from the house.

Up close, the guy is handsome, objectively, with an undercurrent of nervousness that even Eddie can pity a bit. When he asks about getting a room, the guy jokes, “Oh, certainly. We have twelve vacancies. Twelve cabins, twelve vacancies,” with the sort of false ease that comes with preparing something over and over again.

His name is Norman, of the same Bates whose name is on the sign and the stationary, although it’s just him and his mother now, even more so since that highway redirected most of what little business they’d had. He doesn’t ask for I.D. when Eddie gives his name as Edwin Sobotka, just takes his money and insists on showing Eddie to his room, glancing back to make sure Eddie’s following. Eddie thinks he knows where this is going. It’s a surprise when Norman instead asks, “Are you hungry?”

“Uh, I’m really about getting in the shower right now, honestly.”

Norman’s back straightens as his eyes shoot between Eddie and the bathroom door, and, okay, there’s no way that Eddie is reading this wrong. An ache punches in his chest—not that Eddie thinks he’s exactly thriving in life, but, fuck, Norman is like looking a stretched-thin funhouse version of himself.

“I could eat,” Eddie finds himself saying. “Is there a diner or something nearby?” 

“There’s a diner not too far off, but I could fix you something easily enough up in the house,” Norman responds, so, so eagerly, and Eddie nods.

It doesn’t take long to settle into the room. The bed’s comfortable enough. He’s tempted to leave the door open in hopes that it’ll let the stale air out, but leaves it shut as he tucks away his belongings—the envelope hasn’t stopped feeling like lava, but he’s almost gotten used to dealing with it.

He jumps when he hears the coarse voice of an old woman, the begging response of a grown man. 

“Oh, I know why you want to dine with strange men,” the woman says, the threat more in its fact than anything else, and, christ, Eddie’s chest tightens until his breath gets choked off, thin and painful. He does his best not to listen, but the notes are still so familiar, it hardly feels like he needs to. A sympathetic tendril of shame unfurls through his gut.

When Eddie leaves the room, Norman is standing not far off with a tray of food in his hands and a sorry look on his face.

“It’s really alright, man. I have some snacks in the car that’ll do,” Eddie lies, but Norman’s face flickers with annoyance—not directed at Eddie.

“A man needs to eat,” he replies. “I know it doesn’t mean as much coming from me, but I’m sorry that this couldn’t be a full meal. I can leave the tray with you, if you’d like.”

It didn’t sound like Norman would particularly like that scenario, and Eddie gets it. Fuck, how lonely must it get out here, with nothing but this waning motel and a mother like that? A night wouldn’t hurt Eddie, but it might do Norman some good.

“Sure. You wanna join me?” Eddie asks, nodding back towards the room. 

Norman hesitates, eyes shooting back and forth for a moment before saying, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with two men sharing a meal, now, is there?”

“That’s right, bud.”

The sandwiches are plain but are the first things he’s eaten in weeks that came out of someone’s kitchen. A guy like Norman’s kitchen. He imagines it pristine, well-organized. It makes Eddie want to sit up straight and eat like a decent human being, but he hadn’t realized how long it’s been since dinner meant anything but gas-station snack bags. Norman watches him closely as he stuffs most of a corner into his mouth.

He swallows thickly, chases it with some milk, like a child, then offers, “You want some?”

“No, I already ate earlier,” Norman says, and then, “Have you come from quite far?” 

Eddie blinks, then blinks again. “Portland,” is what eventually comes out of his mouth, and it settles neat as anything into fact.

“So not too far then. Or, well, I don’t know if I can say that, I’ve hardly left fifty miles from where we sit right now, nevermind gone up the coast any,” Norman says, and the bitterness is more comforting than the constant veneer of pleasantry. 

“I know what you mean,” Eddie says, and again the words just seem to pour out of him. “I used to be a taxi driver back home, except it’s not really that big of a town, so I’d just be driving in circles taking little old ladies to their doctor’s appointments and drunks back home from the bar. It was a joke of a way to make a living, I can tell you that. Guess the nice part of all this has just been being able to stretch those circles out into a straight line.”

“Such is our duty in life,” Norman mimics. “Was it just you, then?”

“Nope. Just like you, it’s… _was,_ me and my mom,” Eddie replies.

“You left her,” Norman says, and Eddie can’t make out his tone this time.

He blinks again, and his mind swells with the scent of disinfectant and blood, the feeling of terror and elation and tripping over the lip of the doorway as he runs from the house, then he opens his eyes and the images are sucked back into darkness, but he still says, “Sometimes, being a man is doing whatever it takes to get away.”

Norman just shakes his head. “Mother is quite ill. I’m afraid if there was anything out there waiting for me, it’s far too late for me to go find it.”

“I don’t think ‘too late’ really exists, Or, I mean, you don’t need to jump straight to roadtrips. You can start small,” Eddie says, and then, feeling daring, “With a night.”

Norman doesn’t rely at all to that, but he doesn’t object, doesn’t leave, just keeps looking at Eddie, so Eddie drops what’s left of the sandwich, rubs his hands against his pants, then walks over to Norman, who just keeps watching until Eddie eases himself into Norman’s lap. The bed creaks beneath them.

Norman responds when Eddie finally kisses him, but it’s a bare thing, hesitant and awkward to the point that Eddie starts to regret pushing this—what else was he expecting, exactly?—but eventually Norman shakes, squeezes a hand on Eddie’s hip, then reaches up to pull him closer, still clumsy but starved now, too, and _that_ feels nice. 

Their clothes come off with similar ease. Shit, maybe Eddie was underestimating what a guy who looks like Norman can get up with this whole place to himself, people of all sorts coming and going, because it’s Norman who reaches down first and wraps a long-fingered hand around Eddie’s dick.

“Hell yeah,” Eddie gasps, mouthing at the side of Norman’s neck, careful, discrete, even as his hips jerk eagerly. 

Norman makes a disapproving noise, and Eddie almost apologizes, except Norman says with a deep, hungry voice, “I’d fuck you if I could. If—”

Eddie groans again, the words sounding newly filthy coming out of a mouth as uptight as Norman’s, and Norman’s hands reach for his ass, bringing their hips and their cocks together. Yeah, Eddie has definitely had way worse nights than this. The rhythm is frantic, just off-beat enough to make it that much more exciting.

“Oh,” Norman moans, “Oh, _oh,”_ and Eddie grunts in response, close, and then Norman says, “Oh, _Mother.”_

Eddie’s head jerks up, but the rest of his body is too far gone, hips jerking automatically the last few strokes it takes to push him over the edge, and Norman follows suit not long after.

He rolls to the side. Stares up at the ceiling. Contemplates his life.

“Oh, no,” Norman moans, with his hands over his face, tension radiating from his whole body, even as their combined come stripes his stomach. “How could I do this? How will she ever forgive me?

“Alright, well. I’m going to go take that shower now,” Eddie says as he stands up, pity mixing with apprehension. He really needs to stop doing this shit. Another vague memory rises, of meeting strange men in dark woods, none of them with many other choices, the risk sinking Eddie from an adrenaline high to stomach-rolling guilt. _What if they were sick? What if he’s sick? When they run into each other in town, will their eyes just skip past each other?_

He rolls off the bed. The walk to the bathroom is too short, and he feels a frantic energy as he triple-checks the lock behind him. Not that it really matters. This is Norman’s motel, after all.

The rain has let up—he can hear the silence out the narrow window above the toilet. No way the road is any more lively than it was when he got here. Eddie should probably just leave. The room didn’t cost enough to justify sticking either of them having to face each other longer than necessary.

Getting that shower first probably won’t hurt, though.

The water pressure isn’t great but it warms quickly enough. Eddie scrubs his entire body, numb even as his hands redden and his chest turns blotchy. He’s a free man, excised from all that he’s come from, except his mind is still racing, muttering to himself. What is _wrong_ with him? He pulls back on the strings tightening from the base of his skull down his spine and can’t even trace them back far enough to make any sense of how the hell his life has lead to _this—_

Eddie doesn’t notice the door opening, nor the sound of footsteps approaching the tub. The shadow breaks the plain white of the tile, though, and Eddie looks up in surprise as the curtain is drawn back.

The face alone is so different that Eddie is at first convinced that it must be someone else, but there’s no time to think before the glint of a plain kitchen knife catches his eye as it swings down on him.

It connects, but even that barely registers except in its retraction, the off-balance moment that gives Eddie enough time to launch himself forward, tripping over the rim of the tub and toppling them both—both naked, pressed together, desperate. A familiar cry echoes as Eddie finds himself with the knife and stabs in deep. 

Eddie doesn’t even dress as he runs out the door, just grabs the essentials—the keys, the envelope, fuck, how did he even get this thing?—plants his bare ass in the driver’s seat, and _goes._

In the rearview mirror, he sees a figure stagger out of Cabin 1.

* * *

Eddie is already screaming by the time the pain sets in, like shoving a fork in a socket then headbutting a sizzling griddle, begging for answers to questions he can’t even formulate. He’s at the edge of the continent and there’s still no escaping. 

There had been an idea growing, images of going north and giving Canada another shot—the evergreens of B.C. seemed promising—but fuck it. He’s going to L.A. Even if it’s just to get stitched back up and sit on a beach until the worst of this grime evaporates off him. There have to be worse pieces of work than him there.

**Author's Note:**

> I did my best to establish this within the fic, but to be clear, in this fic Eddie stayed behind in Derry into adulthood, until he left, for reasons, and while this is largely Psycho-centered, the Derry brain drain still applies.


End file.
